It's been two weeks since Xin Feng went in seclusion. Within the two weeks, the last person that was able to travel to Xin Feng, came. Jessica was the one to notify Xin Feng about suspicious events that could be related to the invasion, hence Xin Feng finally decided to step out of his basement. With dreaded breaths, she had knocked his door to tell him about the terrifying news that she saw on social media.
"So it begins…" Xin Feng muttered the moment he opened the door. With a look of solemnity, he stared at his sister's eyes for a second. "Gather everyone in the living room…"
After a few minutes, everyone had been gathered. Sylvie, Von, Brandon, and lastly, Jonathan. All of them sat on the couch of the living room, awaiting the words Xin Feng would say. In front of them, he sat like a concerned King that needed to come up with a great plan to save his kingdom. Beside him was his sister, who had rushed up to him to bring her tablet that had all of the information related to the invasion bookmarked.
As Xin Feng scrolled through the information, he confirmed that it wasn't fake. Nine days ago, there were sightings of strange spatial cracks on cemeteries, which obliterated someone into ash when his wife asked him to check it out. After that, scientists tried to unveil the mysterious portal, which in fact brought terror five days after its appearance.
Out of the older tombs, skeletons came to attack every living being within sight. At that time, the scientists thought there was another clue when the space rupture became unstable. Instead, it was a horde of skeletons that injured and even killed many of them early on. There was absolutely no way the soldiers could've helped the ones who were too close to the portals.
Thankfully, the treat was nothing but mere skeletons that could die from a slight crack on their skull. The skeletons were eventually wiped out by the rain of bullets, but the mysteries of the space rupture remained mysterious. To prevent another load of great scientist dying from trying to research a way to get rid of the space rupture or a method to use it as a weapon, the number of special soldiers increased near the scientists.
Together, Sylvie, Von and Brandon looked at the information on Xin Feng's hands. Brandon was the first one to talk, mentioning how sad he was to know that the problem has been already taken care off. Sylvie was happy from the fact that the problem had been taken care off, but she was still unsure. With uncertainty, she asked Xin Feng if that was all to the invasion. Xin Feng sighed, before he asked her why she hasn't believed his words yet.
"Does that look like a demon invasion to you?" Xin Feng asked with a tone that regarded her as an ignorant child. It seemed that Sylvie was still reluctant to accept the worse to happen, as she kept fiddling with her fingers after Xin Feng had asked her his obvious question.
"All right. This should be enough proof, and I'm certain it wouldn't end right as it started."
"So Old G pal, don't worry! I'll make sure you chop heads off real soon!" Xin Feng continued his words with his thumbs up as a sign of assurance.
'Those skeletons are but bones of mortals. Looks like the greater threats haven't appeared yet… If they had the same strength as those undead that grabbed onto me, no one will ever be able to save this planet.'
"…"
The five of them were still in the living room, waiting for Xin Feng to finish his thoughts before telling them his commands. They saw him as the leader of the group after all, since he was the one who brought them together and knew the most about the invasion. Brandon was in his own dreamworld, Von awkwardly stared directly at Xin Feng's thoughtful face, Sylvie was deep inside her own thoughts just like Xin Feng, while Jonathan was meddling with his phone, reading comics the entire time.
While Sylvie was in her own thoughts, she paid attention to Xin Feng as well. She was waiting for him to finish his own thoughts, before she could ask him what she could do. That was the best conclusion she could come up with after having pondered for a while. She didn't want to become a stranger to Xin Feng after her last words that gave her a bad light. At least that's how she thought Xin Feng might treat her if she stayed silent the entire time. Being straight forward and asking for forgiveness would sound too desperate, while being embarrassed and regretful would increase the familiarity between her and him. She truly felt as if she fell into a difficult spot, as her expectation was to get quite close to Xin Feng but became the near opposite instead.
"Follow me."
Everyone followed Xin Feng into the basement. There, the cold weapons and fire arms were revealed to them. Without a strong body and knowledge to wield cold weapons it was better for Xin Feng to let them practice the use of fire arms. They were best for many situations and were deadly enough no matter whose hands it's on. To be able to use a cold weapon decently would take way longer than to learn how to reload, clean, and shoot a gun. That's why Xin Feng decided to open the crates to give them some fire arms. The melee weapons were backups anyway, since they wouldn't be able to use it continuously without an athletic body that does combat sports.
Days passed, but luckily there hasn't been any signs of entities appearing that are stronger than the skeletons. Throughout the days, Xin Feng thought the crew the non-dangerous things as reloading, safety measures, cleaning, and how to properly hold the type of guns they chose. Of course, the weapons they chose were under Xin Feng's approval and recommendations.
From the morning on until noon, he let them train their proficiency with fire arms, and late in the afternoon, he made them exercise and familiarize themselves with the melee weapons that they had chosen. Out of everyone, his sister Jessica and Brandon were showing the most potential. The two of them were the most serious ones, since they've already accepted the fact that slacking would only hurt them.
Although serious, Brandon had more of an exited and motivated energy, while Jessica seemed to be more concerned and determined to improve herself. Other than those two, Sylvie tried, and Von managed to give Xin Feng a great surprise. He was able to guess Von's physical abilities from his boasts, but he didn't expect it to be so great.
Perhaps it was due to his weight decreasing, but it was way better than Von claimed. Von had mentioned that he was able to dance for hours and run two kilometers within twenty-five minutes at a constant pace, but it seemed as if he could do way better than that. Since Von showed potential, Xin Feng gave him special attention and continued increasing his workload with every small improvement. If it worked out, Xin Feng estimated that Von would soon be on par with Brandon and Jessica.
Jonathan. Xin Feng tried so hard to persuade him, but Jonathan seemed to be too demotivated. He barely spoke, and when he spoke, the sentence was short and straight forward. Since Xin Feng couldn't persuade him, he didn't force him. At least Jonathan would often come to backyard to spectate them training.
It brought Xin Feng at ease, since Jonathan would know the way how they progressed and how they would work together later. He would know the basics of holding a cold weapon and firearm, since he had seen the gist of it. All in all, everything seemed to work out well, and if Xin Feng assumed their survivability rate when they're alone and if it was based on their training and character, that it would start off with Brandon having a survivability rate near the eleventh percentage, Jessica and Von near the nine percentage, Sylvie near the fourth percentage, and Jonathan between two and seven percent.
The reason why Xin Feng assumed Jonathan to have a survivability rate between two and seven percent, was because his character seemed a bit mysterious and unknown. From a flat surface, he seemed like a typical no-life and introvert, but his direct refusal to train made Xin Feng a bit suspicious. All Xin Feng knew was that Jonathan was a fellow author, so he couldn't make a correct assumption. But if he wasn't wrong, Jonathan would only react like that to his persuasion because he was sure that he had decent combat skills, or because he was simply too suicidal. Suicidal wouldn't make truly sense, because he was still alive and decided to join him Xin Feng as well.
'That would mean that he has a purpose in live, and for that purpose he will definitely not accept his death so easily…'